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doubt that an accommodation is inevitable, unless the same spirit of loitering which has for so many years haunted the Foreign Office in Venezuelan matters, should still preside over these negotiations.

A FRANCO-DUTCH PRECEDENT,

A precedent has been mentioned which is worth recalling. Five years ago the French and the Dutch could not agree about a boundary in Guiana. They both held that a certain river was the boundary, but they disputed the identity of the river. One said that the river in question, as marked on the map, was a certain stream; the other said it was quite another stream. The question was referred to the Tsar. The Tsar declined to accept the task unless he was allowed to go into the whole question of the frontier. This was conceded. He decided that the Dutch were in the right, and that their river was the true boundary. But he added to his award the proviso -which is apt to the business that we now have in handthat his award was to be without prejudice to the rights acquired bona fide by French settlers in the limits of the territory in dispute. This comes to pretty much the same thing as Mr. Olney's proviso; and who would say that the French would not have been wrong to refuse arbitration, lest they should be breaking the careers and possibly ruining the fortunes of the settlers whose rights the Tsar thus safeguarded?

THE QUESTION OF A GENERAL TREATY.

Then turning to the question of a general treaty of arbitration, he notes that both negotiators are agreed in excluding questions which involve the honour and integrity of the nation. He says:

The matter is one of infinite delicacy and difficulty. In the Swiss-American draft treaty the parties agree to submit to arbitration all difficulties that may arise between the two States, "whatever may be the cause, the nature, or the object of such difficulties." This is obviously impracticably wide for our case. In the plan adopted at the Pan-American Conference of 1890, the only excepted questions were to be such as, "in the judgment of any one of the nations involved in the controversy, may imperil its independence. qualification which, in controversies between us and the United States, would be merely futile."

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Mr. Olney's own proposal of a preliminary reference to Parliament or Congress seems not a little cumbrous, though he makes an ingenious defence for it. The whole policy of arbitration rests on the expediency of removing international disputes from the atmosphere of passion, and to ask a great national and popular assembly to decide beforehand whether a given dispute involves national honour or not will perhaps strike many persons as a questionable experiment for suppressing passion.

HOW TO AVOID TERRITORIAL DISPUTES.

Lord Salisbury in his reply practically narrows down the accepted questions to those relating to territorial. rights. But as Mr. Morley points out, territorial questions can hardly arise between the United States and Great Britain, both of whom have well-defined frontiers. He says:

It has been suggested that a clause might be added to the treaty of arbitration upon the basis of existing possessions, definitely prohibiting the raising of any question relating to territory now in undisputed occupation. There is something like this, though not quite the same, in the sixth article of the Pan-American project. At any rate this ground of anxiety might be removed by the acceptance in the treaty of an anthentic map of existing territories. So far as I am aware, the not very momentous dispute about the Alaskan boundary

is the only ragged edge in territorial matters between Great Britain and the United States.

Mr. Morley touches lightly upon the question of the constitution of the tribunal, the right of appeal, and the rules which it would have to administer. He says:

The truth is that the creation of a permanent tribunal would be the best way of improving the rules of what is called international law. Sir Henry Maine has some weighty remarks on the advantages of a permanent court or board of arbitrators over occasional adjudicators appointed ad hoc.

THE THINGS TO BE DONE.

Mr. Morley's conclusion is as well weighed as it is weighty. He says:

If the principle of arbitration and a permanent tribunal were once established, and with reasonable securities and safeguards embodied in practical shape, that in itself would be an immense step towards lessening the chances of war, even in cases which lay outside the specific operations of the tribunal.

The things to be done are to frame the exception clause, which, though difficult, is not beyond the expert skill of Lord Salisbury and Mr. Olney; and to shape the constitution and functions of the tribunal, as to which the two ministers could evidently come to an understanding in twenty-four hours. If these two things are done, the award should be final, or else we might almost as well or better leave the project alone.

To leave it alone would, in the opinion of the present writer, be nothing short of a disaster to one of the greatest causes now moving the Western world. If Lord Salisbury fails, the question, we may be sure, will be set fatally back for many a year to come.

MR. NORMAN'S WARNING.

Mr. Henry Norman, writing upon the arbitration negotiations and the hitch about the settled districts, says:

The American brief for Venezuela denies categorically that there are any British settlers there at all. The simplest way of settling this point would seem to be for three men representing Great Britain, the United States, and Venezuela, to go themselves to the territory in question and see with their own eyes whether there are any settlers or not. This is probably far too simple a course to be adopted. I am only anxious that Englishmen should not believe that the storm has blown over, when there is only a lull.

A PROPHECY OF THE ISSUE.

The editor of the New England Magazine recalls in his July number a prophecy uttered by Edward Everett Hale when preaching in 1889. It reads curiously in the light of the last eight months:

The twentieth century will apply the word of the Prince of Peace to international life. The beginning will not be made at the end of war, but in some time of peace. The suggestion will come from one of the Six Great Powers. It will be from a nation which has no large permanent military establishment; that is to say, it will probably come from the United States. This nation, in the most friendly way, will propose to the other great Powers to name each one jurist of world-wide fame, who with the other five shall form a permanent tribunal of the highest dignity. Everything will be done to give this tribunal the honour and respect of the world. As an international court, it will be organized without reference to any especial case under discussion. Then it will exist. Gradually the habit will be formed of consulting this august tribunal in all questions before states. More and more will men of honour and command feel that an appointment to serve on this tribunal is the highest human dignity. Of such a tribunal the decisions, though no musket enforce them, will be one day received of course.

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17. Correspondence regarding Arbitration with America laid upon the table of the House of Lords by Lord Salisbury.

18.

20.

The Report of the Jameson Select Committee
rendered in the Cape Assembly.

A Statue of Burns unveiled, by Mr. Alfred
Austin, at Irvine, Ayrshire.

The Trial at Bar of Jameson and his co-Defen-
dants opened.

Further Massacres in Crete.

Sir F. Carrington's force began the attack of the
Matabele in the Matoppo Hills.

21. A Statue of the Queen unveiled near Blackfriars Bridge.

Commercial Treaty between China and Japan signed.

22. The Marriage of Princess Maud of Wales with Prince Charles of Denmark took place at Buckingham Palace.

23.

The German Gunboat Iltis lost off the Chinese
Coast.

24. Anti-Socialistic disturbance in Lille.

The Cape Assembly adopted the Report of the
Committee on the Jameson Raid.

25. The Populists nominated Mr. Bryan, Democratic nominee, for the Presidency.

26. International Peace Demonstration took place in Hyde Park.

Statue to M. Jules Ferry unveiled at St. Dié. 27. The International Socialist Workers' Congress opened at the Queen's Hall.

28. Dr. Jameson and his co-Defendants sentenced to imprisonment.

Mr. Rhodes expressed his willingness to return
to London for Trial.

British Medical Association opened its Annual
Session at Carlisle.

29. The Cape Assembly refused Leave of Absence to Dr. Harris.

30. President Cleveland issued a Proclamation enjoining Neutrality upon the Citizens of the Republic in the Cuban Difficulty.

SPEECHES.

July 1. Sir M. Monier-Williams, and Lord George Hamilton, at Oxford, on the Indian Institute. Sir Wm. Maxwell, at Liverpool, on Ashanti. 4. Sir Walter Besant, Hon. W. H. Reeves, and others, at Browning Hall, on the Unity of the English-speaking World.

5. Cardinal Vaughan, at Manchester, on the Reunion of Christendom.

6. Sir Wm. Harcourt, at Holloway Hall, on the Government.

7. Mr. Hall Caine, at Eastbourne, on the Danger of Intellectual Apathy.

8.

Mr. Chamberlain, at Birmingham, on Provincial Municipal Institutions.

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PARLIAMENTARY.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

July 2. Royal Assent given to the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Bill, and a number of other Bills.

Third Reading of the Edinburgh University
and the Boyne Navigation Bills.

First Reading of the Agricultural Land Rating
Bill.

6. Motion for the Second Reading of the Irish Church Act, 1869, Amendment Bill.

Third Reading of the Fisheries Acts (Norfolk
and Suffolk) Amendment Bill, and the Metro-
politan Counties Water Board Bill.
Second Reading of the Fisheries Acts Amead-
ment Bill.

First Reading of University of London Bill. 7. Third Reading of Diseases of Animals Bill. Second Reading of the Trusts (Scotland) Bill. The Working Men's Dwellings Bill passed through Committee.

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10.

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14.

Agricultural Land Rating Bill passed through Committee without Amendment.

Italian Ministry resigned.

Lord Salisbury, in the House of Lords, upon Arbitration with America.

12. A village in Crete fire 1 on by a Turkish ship. 13. The New Canadian Ministry took the Oath of Allegiance.

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Thirty English Socialists expelled from Autwerp.

21.

14. Li Hung Chang received by President Faure. New Italian Ministry approved by King Humbert.

22.

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Third Reading of the Trusts (Scotland) Bill, and Second Reading of the Orkney and Zetland Small Piers and Harbours Bill.

Lord Onslow moved a resolution touching the payment of the Indian Troops in Egypt. Discussion by Lord Lansdowne, Lord Kimberley, Lord Salisbury and others. Resolution carried.

The papers relating to the question of Arbitration between Great Britain and the United States laid upon the Table of the House of Lords.

Third Reading of the Agricultural Land Rating Bill and the Fisheries Acts Amendment Bill. Royal Assent given to the Diseases of Animals Bill, the Agricultural Land Rating Bill and others.

Third Reading of the Liverpool Court of Passage and the Chairmen of District Councils Bills.

16.

M. Zola, at Paris, on M. de Goncourt.
Lord Rosebery, at Dumfries and Glasgow, on
Burns.

Sir M. Hicks Beach, at Bristol, on the Cabinet
Mr. Chamberlain, at Hôtel Métropole, on the 17.
Opposition,

20.

Lord Wolseley, at the India Office, on Indian Military Expenditures.

21. Third Reading of the Parliamentary Costs Bill. 23. Third Reading of the Vexatious Actions Bill, and the Public Health (Ports) Bill.

Second Reading of the London University Commission Bill.

24. Third Reading of the Public Health Bill and the Public Offices (Sites) Bill.

27. Second Reading of the Friendly Societies Bill and the Collecting Societies Bill.

28. First Reading of the Coal Mines Regulation Act (1887) Amendment (No. 2) Bill and the Conciliation (Trade Disputes) Bill.

20. First Reading of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill. 30. Third Reading of the London University Bill. Second Reading of the Coal Mines Regulation Act (1887) Amendment (No. 2) Bill, and the Labourers (Ireland) Bill.

Third Reading of the Collecting Societies Bill and the Friendly Societies Bill.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

July 1. On the Order for Third Reading of the Agricultural Land Rating Bill, Mr. Asquith moved the Bill be read on that day three months. Discussion by Mr. Cripps, Sir Henry Fowler, Mr. Whiteley, Mr. Chaplin, Sir Wm. Harcourt, Mr. Balfour and others. Amendment negatived by 292 to 140. Bill read a Third Time.

Third Reading of the Chairmen of District
Councils Bill and the Orkney and Shetland
Small Piers and Harbours Bill.

2. First Reading of Bill to Amend the Law respecting Classification of Lands and Heritages for purposes of Rating, etc., in Scotland.

Resolution to make provision for the construc-
tion of a Railway from Mombassa to the
Victoria Nyanza agreed to.

Second Reading of the Coal Mines Regulation
Act (1888) Amendment (No. 2) Bill.

8. Discussion of the Finance Bill resumed. Third Reading of the Judicial Trustees Bill. The Accountants (Scotland) Bill withdrawn. 9. Discussion of the Finance Bill resumed. Clause 25, relating to the Remission of Land Tax in excess of 1s. in the pound carried by 209 to 77. Bill Reported to the House.

THE LATE SIR AUGUSTUS BERKELEY PAGET.

3. Mr. Gerald Balfour announced that the Irish
Education Bill would be withdrawn.
Motion to reduce the Vote for the Foreign Office
in Committee of Supply by Mr. Monk. Dis-
cussion by Sir R. Reid, Mr. Curzon, Mr.
Bryce and others, on Affairs in Crete and Ar- 10.
menia. Motion withdrawn.

Motion to reduce the salary of the Secretary of
State negatived. Vote agreed to.

6. Lord G. Hamilton moved that the costs of Indian
Troops in Egypt be charged to India. Amend-
ment moved by Mr. John Morley. Discussion
by Sir Hicks-Beach, Sir H. Fowler, Mr. Bal-
four and others. Amendment negatived by
275 to 190. Lord G. Hamilton's Resolution
carried by 252 to 106.

THE LATE EDMOND DE GONCOURT. (Photograph by Nadar, Paris.)

7. In Committee on the Finance Bill. Progress reported.

Third Reading of the Incumbents of Benefices
Loans Extension Bill.

Second Reading of the Public Health (Ports)
Bill and the Short Titles Bill.

13.

(Photograph by Elliot and Fry, Baker Street.)

On the Vote for Public Education in England and Wales-Discussion by Sir J. Gorst, Mr. Gray, Mr. Dillon, Sir Joha Lubbock and others. Vote agreed to.

Vote for the Science and Art: Department agreed to.

Mr. Scott-Montague presented a petition from
Citizens of Bulawayo praying that the Charter
of the B. S. A. Company be not revoked.
Debate on amendment, moved by Sir H. Camp-
bell-Bannerman, to the Agricultural Rates,
Congested Districts and Burgh Land Tax
Relief (Scotland) Bill.

Third Reading of the Public Health (Ports)
Bill.

The Irish Education Bill and the Metropolitan
Police Courts Bill withdrawn.

14. Debate on Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's
Amendment to the motion for the Second
Reading of the Agricultural Rates, Congestel
Districts, and Burgh Land Tax Relief (Scot-
land) Bill, resumed. Amendment negatived
by 276 to 139. Bill read a second time.
Debate on the Finance Bill.

15. Sir W. Harcourt moved the adjournment of the House-Debate by Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Morley, and others. Motion withdrawn.

Debate on the Finance Bill resumed by Mr.
Dalziel-Coutinued by others and passed the
Report Stage.

The Local Government (Highways) Bill with

drawn.

16. Went into Committee on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, and proceeded to consider Clauses 2, 3, and 4.

The Juvenile Offenders (Whipping) Bill, the
Public Health (Scotland) (No. 2) Bill, the
Women Bar Assistants (Limitation of Hours)
Bill, the Evidence in Criminal Cases Bill, and
the Libel Bill with drawn.

17. Civil Service Estimates in Committee of Supply -Vote for Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary for Ireland and London and of Subordinate Departments, agreed to. Discussion on the Vote for the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland.

20. Motion that Public Business shoul I not be interrupted during the remain ler of the Session, excepting We Inesdays, arrie 1 by 299 to 106. Consideration of the Lani Law (Ireland) Bill

resume!.

21. Motion for adjournment of the House withdrawn. Discussion of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill resume.l.

22.

23.

24.

Discussion on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill. Discussion of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill continued by Mr. Gerald Balfour, Mr. John Morley, Colonel Saunderson and others. Adjourned Debate on the vote for the Commissioners of National Education in Irelan! resumed by Mr. Dillon; continued by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gerald Balfour and others. Vote agreed to.

The Vote for Queen's College in Ireland and several other Irish Votes agreed to.

27. Second Reading of the Uganda Railway Bill. Third Reading of the Conciliation (Trade Disputes) Bill and the Coal Mines Regulation Act (1887) Amendment (No. 2) Bill.

28. Discussion on the Land Law (Ireland) Fill by Mr. Dillon, Mr. Gerald Balfour and others. 29. Mr. Smith-Barry moved the Third Reading of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, seconded by Colonel Saunderson. After some discussion Bill was read a Third, Time. Third Reading of the Finance Bill.

30. Mr. Chamberlain moved that a Select Committee should be appointed to enquire into the administration of the British South Africa Company, etc. Motion as amended unauimously agreed to.

Third Reading of the Truck Bill and the Light
Railways Bill.

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OBITUARY.

July 1. Mrs. Harriett Beecher Stowe, Author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 84.

General George F. Hogg, C. B., 61.

2. Rev. Dr. Kögel, Chaplain to the Imperial Family, Berlin, 67.

Rear-Admiral J. C. Byng.

5. General I. G. Kennedy, C.B., 60

Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred R. Thompson.

6. Lieutenant-Colonel Chas. A. MacDougall, 65. 7. Sir John Pender, 81.

William R. O'Byrne, Naval biographer. 8. Erdmann Eucke, sculptor, 53. 10. Professor Ernst Curtius, archæologist, 81. 11. Sir Augustus Paget, 73. 13. M. Kyprioti, diplomatist, 66. 16. M. Edmond de Goncourt, 75. 17. Joseph A. Novello, 86. 19. Sir Percy Anderson, 65.

20

Charles Dickens, "the Younger," 59.
Right Rev. Arthur C. Coxe, 78.
Thos. G. Weir, M.D., F.R.C.P., 84.

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THE LATE SIR JOHN PENDER. (Photograph by Falk, New York.)

21. Joseph W. Harper, publisher. 23. M. Eugene Spuller, 61.

Mary Dickens, daughter of the novelist, 58. 27. John B. Cowan, M.D., LL.D. 28. Mr. Henry Garrett, New York Herald Correspondent.

IT

THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: MR. MCKINLEY AND MR. BRYAN.

INTRODUCTORY.

is a long time since any Presidential election in the United States has possessed such elements of interest to Great Britain as that which has now commenced.

HOMAGE TO JOHN BULL.

Little as the majority of our millions realise the fact, there was seldom a greater compliment paid by one nation to another than that which is unconsciously and involuntarily offered by the contending parties in the United States to John Bull.

What are the issues upon which the battle is raging and will continue to rage with ever-increasing intensity until the polling day in November? Each political party has its own issue, but at bottom both issues are one, and both are due to the excessive, exaggerated estimate which our American kinsfolk have formed of the prowess, the power, and the wealth of Great Britain.

MR. MCKINLEY'S TRIBUTE TO OUR TRADE.

Mr. McKinley, the Republican candidate, is a man emphatically of one idea, and that idea is that the industries of the United States are impotent to hold their own in the home market against the manufactures of Great Britain. It is, therefore, a matter of life and death for the Republic to build up a huge Chinese wall of prohibitive tariff round its frontiers, within which the American manufacturer can do his business without the fear of that terrible John Bull before his eyes. No doubt Mr. McKinley's dread of foreign competition is by no means confined exclusively to that of Great Britain. But we stand in the forefront of the van of those whom he dreads. When he talks of the need of protection, he thinks primarily of the need of shutting English goods out of the American market. If he succeeds in doing that his task is accomplished. Thus it may be said that the essence of the Republican platform is the need of taking such action as they believe to be indispensably necessary to protect American manufacturers from British imports. That is to say, the Republican platform is primarily directed against British trade.

MR. BRYAN'S TO OUR FINANCE.

When we turn to the other party, we find its programme and its candidate are even more dominated than Mr. McKinley and the Republicans by the dread of Great Britain. The Democratic programme, which was adopted in Chicago, and their candidate, Mr. Bryan, although they say many things, good, bad, and indifferent, in reality sound only one note, viz., that of War to the Death against what they regard as the financial policy of Great Britain. As Mr. McKinley cannot sleep at night for dreaming of foreign competition in the realm of commerce, Mr. Bryan is haunted day and night by the nightmare of John Bull as the champion gold bug of the

world. Poor innocent John Bull! There are some forty millions of him in these islands, of whom probably thirtynine millions nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand have not even the remotest ghost of an idea that anything they have done in the past, or that they are doing now, gives our American cousins the least reason for alarm. But, although our people know nothing of it, it is an article of faith with millions, especially in the Western cities of America, that by his financial policy— that is to say, by his monometallism and insisting upon a gold currency--John Bull is the deadliest foe of the American people. You cannot take up any of the American newspapers or magazines that are devoted to the advocacy of free silver without discovering that George III. was not in it compared with the Old Lady in Threadneedle Street as an object for popular detestation in the great Republic of the West.

A NEW WAR OF INDEPENDENCE!

All

Take for instance the last number of the Arena which has come to hand. The Arena is edited by an able man who is no stranger to England or its institutions, who spent some time quite recently in this country, and who is a man of undoubted carnestness, enthusiasm, and sincerity. Every article that he writes is as the blast of a clarion summoning the American people to a new war of independence against the enthralling despotism of John Bull. He says, for instance, in his last number: "The present battle is between British gold and American ballots, and as in '76 so in '96, American patriots have determined that their land shall be free. through the south and west, millions of thoughtful men and determined patriots have," he tells us, "arrived at the firm conviction that the people at last shall be free, that the domination of the gold power and the servitudo of America to England shall cease." The great struggle he describes as "the second Valley Forge of the American struggle for independence, for the conflict involves the very life of American institutions." He accuses the American gold monometallists of acting under the direction of "the usurer class of Britain to overawe the American press, to ruin American prosperity, and to resort to devious by-ways and crooked ways in order to accomplish the domination of British supremacy, or rather to accomplish the supremacy of the Bank of England policy over the prosperity and happiness of American millions, from the manufacturers and merchants to the farmer and artizan."

THE NOTE OF DEFIANCE.'

All this is absolutely incomprehensible to the average Briton. He cannot imagine for the life of him what he has done to excite his Western friends in this extraordinary fashion. The fact, however, remains indisputable. The rallying cry of the Democratic Party, which has just selected Mr. Bryan as its banner-bearer in the fight, is one of war to the bitter end against the despotism of England in the realm of finance. The note of the famous speech which secured for Mr. Bryan the nomination to the Presidency was distinctly and avowedly a summons to an oppressed and enslaved population to rally round the silver banner in a holy war of independence against the English octopus. "Our war," said

Mr. Bryan, " is not a war of conquest: we are fighting in the defence of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, but our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked, and our calamity came. We beg no longer, we'entreat no more, we petition no more; but we defy them." And that defiant note will vibrate in every Democratic meeting that is held throughout the length and breadth of the Republic all through this autumn from Maine to California.

WHAT JOHN BULL THINKS OF IT ALL.

John Bull, of course, ought to feel very much flattered by the extraordinary amount of attention he and his policy is receiving from across the Atlantic. As a matter of fact, John Bull, not being a vain man, is insensible to flattery on this continental scale. Notwithstanding his top boots, and the swashbuckler disguise in which he is often portrayed in the American press, our friend John is a very quiet, peaceable, modest individual, who seeks for nothing in the world so much as opportunity to carry on his business quietly and without fuss. Being thus, he feels only a sense of the absurdity of it all, and an uneasy foreboding as to the possible contingencies which may arise in the future out of the prodigious pother that is being made on his account. Whichever side wins, it seems as if things will be made somewhat worse for him. If Mr. McKinley is elected, the Chinese wall of protection will be raised still higher against his manu

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abound; and this resurrection of sectionalism, this arraying of the States which borrow against the States which lend, is one of the most interesting, although not the least alarming, portents of these latter days.

THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION AS A BRITISH INTEREST.

It would be infinitely more alarming were it not that the American Constitution has been elaborately contrived in order to nullify in advance every decision of the popular will by a series of checks and counter-checks, which have as the result absolute zero. Whichever side wins it will be impossible for it to give effect to its views for a year or two, and by that time the pendulum may have swung in the opposite direction and nothing may have come of it all. The Chinoiseries of the American Constitution, together with the McKinleyites' devotion to a Chinese wall of protection, and the Democratic devotion

MRS. MCKINLEY.

factures; if Mr. Bryan wins, he fears that it will be the signal for an attempt to steal 50 per cent. of the money which he has invested in American securities. Whichever way it goes, it will be the worse for him.

JOHN BULL'S PARTNERS IN DISLIKE.

Apart from our national, commercial or financial interest in the issue of the American elections, the bearing of the question on the future of the Republic is extremely interesting. For the Democratic party with its silver standard regards Wall Street, New York, and the Eastern States generally with a detestation almost as great as that with which it regards the Bank of England and Great Britain. Wall Street and the Eastern States are to the new Democratic or Populist party what the Royalist Tories in the Colonial days were to Washington and the patriots who drew up the Declaration of Independence. In the East there are, no doubt, a few silver men, in the West and the South they

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to silver, irresistibly remind one of the somewhat cruel epigram of Admiral Maxse, who, on returning from a tour in the States, exclaimed, "The Americans! Oh, yes! They are the English-speaking Chinese of the West." It is odd indeed that the American Constitution should be the chief safeguard which John Bull possesses against the Democratic fury of the West.

THE WIFE IN TOLITICS: MRS. MCKINLEY.

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Another point of interest of a more human and domestic nature is the fact that each candidate will owe much of his popularity in the campaign to his relations to his wife. Mrs. McKinley is an invalid, both her children died in infancy, and she has been a constant sufferer for years from a distressing nervous complaint, which renders it impossible for her to take any active part in her husband's political career. But she is talented, accomplished, and an enthusiastic McKinleyite. Before her marriage she was distinctively a modern American woman, well educated, who had travelled in Europe, and who was earning her living as cashier in her father's bank. It was indeed across the counter of that bank where she met the man who will probably raise her to the position of Lady of the White House at Washington. In McKinley's character there is little of romantic interest beyond the extreme and chivalrous devotion which he has paid to his sick wife, and there are probably a million homes in the United States where the figure of the austere politician and indefatigable campaigner will count for less than the picture of the busy man of affairs snatching every moment from a crowded life to hurry home to console and comfort and interest the invalid wife whose love and sympathy have ever been the inspiration of his career.

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